Quoted from mbwalker:I don't think it's a common problem - but I have talked to a few people that had woofer chip problems.
Not to derail the thread - but my Munsters is fine when first turned on. Let it warm up, shut off (letting the power supplies discharge), then back on - woofer chip gets hot. Let it cool off - fine when turned on again. I replaced the woofer chip, problem still occured. It's a Class D amp, so more complicated than just a straight amp.
Just a somewhat educated guess (I'm an electrical engr.), the backbox LED's dump a lot of heat into the CPU, and the woofer chip is almost right next to the LED's on the left side. I took a FLIR of the CPU...the LED's definitely dump out the heat. But since I replaced the woofer chip and it still had a problem, it might be a part that is temperature sensitive (i.e. some caps come to mind). Since seeing the FLIR, I've turned the backbox light down to 30%
In the end, didn't want to fart around with it and ordered a new CPU.
I cringed when I saw those super bright LEDs on the main board on my first spike game. First thing I did was turn the backbox brightness down considerably on all my games. Driving an LED at the max the datasheet says gets hot and reduces their life.
"geeze, i had to replace the CPU board because the backbox GI LED died and now IC does not work"
